Other Sites

One of the most delightful little changes in the latest MoP beta build is the new hunter minor glyph: Glyph of Aspects. I’ve always felt that minor glyphs should really be used to provide cool cosmetic changes, rather than trying to design them to provide a mechanical benefit so tiny that it really doesn’t matter. With Glyph of Aspects we finally have at least one minor glyph that provides that cosmetic change for us:

Glyph of Aspects: Each time you activate a new Aspect, an animal companion representing that Aspect will follow you for 15 sec.

The animal companion that shows up is indeed companion sized — tiny — rather than hunter pet sized, and includes a hawk, a red fox, an orange cat (cheetah) and a white cat (pack). Also amusingly if you switch aspects again before the animal companion has faded away, it dies so the new aspect companion can replace it. Here’s a good video showing the Glyph of Aspects in action:

This is cute and all, but I’m not sure I like it. I mean, instead of emulating the aspect of a wild beast, I’m summoning a tiny little pet? How does that translate into greater prowess in battle?

“Oh, look, I made an owl-thingy! Clearly, my ranged attacks are now more powerful!” It just doesn’t make sense to me.

I was picturing having the spirit of a full-sized (or larger) Cheetah show up for a few moments, or something like that, as a representation of the ability I was calling upon. Setting down an orange house-cat (or even a cheetah model of that size) just doesn’t do the same thing IMO. I just don’t see how it’s appropriate to what’s supposed to be going on.

Some of these may be place-holders? I’m with you: an orange house cat doesn’t seem all that ferocious. When i read the description, I was thinking maybe a small spirit beast, since we have several cat models and an owl.